Ranulf, sitting on a stone wall sunning himself, squinted up at this serjeant-at-arms against whom he had taken an instant dislike. 'Who is ready?' he asked.

Before he received an answer, three others came through the garden: a friar, small, balding and brown as a berry, his face glistening, eyes almost lost in rolls of fat. Beside him was a young clerk, with thick hair cut painfully short. He was dressed in a fustian knee-length sleeveless jupon. Underneath his jerkin was of padded silk with slashed sleeves, and on his dark head sat a small tasselled skull cap. A clerk, Corbett thought, but a fop. Nevertheless, he liked the fellow with his boyish face and laughing eyes. Beside him stood a severe figure with steel-grey hair and a long white face, his chin deeply cleft. He was dressed in a blue quilted gown, fringed at the neck and cuff with dyed black lambswool, which almost hid his spindly legs. Branwood waved them over.

'Sir Hugh Corbett, may I introduce three members of my household. Friar Thomas, my clerk Roteboeuf, and Physician Maigret.'

Hands were clasped and shaken, Corbett introducing Ranulf and Maltote. He glared as Ranulf winked fleetingly at his fellow. Corbett knew his manservant was already poking fun at the young clerk's name which, translated from the Norman French, meant 'Roast Beef. The quick-witted young man caught the exchange of grins.

'My name,' he laughed loudly, 'indicates my origins but not the quality of meals received here in the castle.'

The murmur of laughter, shared by all except Maigret and the sombre-faced Naylor, was halted by Branwood putting up his hands and loudly declaring, 'Sirs, we have problems enough but, I assure you, either the cook changes his ways or he goes!'

'Who knows?' Roteboeuf quipped. 'Sir Eustace, God rest him, may have been poisoned by his own cook.'

'He would not have died so quickly,' Maigret snapped, his eyes flickering with annoyance as he scratched the tip of his nose. 'Sir Eustace was murdered. And you, Sir Peter, had a narrow escape.'